Current Events in June 2014

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) recently estimated that more than 1,000 dogs have died in circumstances that involved pet treats from China. But the agency said it still hadn't pinned down the exact cause of the deaths and illnesses.

That may well be but pet owners and their advocates have been demanding action, and tomorrow (Tuesday), U.S. Sen. Sherrod Brown (D-Ohio) will chair a hearing of the Congressional-Executive Commission on China (CECC) to examine the safety of its meat processing.

The hearing, entitled “Pet Treats and Processed Chicken from China: Concerns for American Consumers and Pets,” will ask if China’s food safety regulation is effective. Brown has repeatedly urged the FDA to take quick action to protect consumers and pet owners following an increase in tainted pet treats from China connected to animal deaths and illnesses.

Recently, major pet stores have announced that they would stop selling dog and cat treats made in China following the animal deaths linked to Chinese food products. Food safety advocates have expressed alarm at new rules that could allow chickens raised in the United States to be shipped to China for processing before being returned to and sold in the U.S. 

Researchers are also exploring the connection between the domestic outbreak of Porcine Epidemic Diarrhea virus in China.

These developments highlight concerns over the effectiveness of China’s food safety regulation, the effectiveness of U.S. government regulation of imported foods from China, and the overall safety of such foods, according to a Brown staffer.

There's also the question of whether current labels are adequate in helping American consumers tell when food products contains ingredients from China.

The CECC is a bipartisan commission made up of Senators, House Members, and senior Administration officials. The Commission was created by Congress in October 2000 with the legislative mandate to monitor human rights and the development of the rule of law in China.

Don't let size fool you -- a chihuahua has an appetite for destruction similar to a sumo wrestler in training. According to a new study done by the financial comparison site Payingtoomuch.com, over its lifetime the little dog that you can dress up, can down over $1,100 worth of non-dog food items.

They can dig up flower beds, carpets, chew a sofa and ruin your favorite designer shoes.

A mighty dog doesn't have to weigh 90 plus pounds to be known as Ivan the Terrible. The wiener dog or Dachshund comes in a swift second to the chihuahua.

The study, taken from a sample of 2,000 dog owners, found that the Dalmatian, Bulldog, Great Dane, Husky, Beagle, Pointer and German Shepard round out the top 10 most destructive dogs.

Bigger may be better

Bigger might just be better in this case as Staffordshire Bull Terriers which are sometimes seen as fierce may be the most cost-efficient in terms of damage control. Their lifetime destruction bills average about $241. They were followed by West Highland Terriers at a mere $247. Third place went to Yorkies followed by Spaniels and coming from behind those skinny little whippets.

You might be surprised to learn that the Rottweiler's bite doesn't translate to destructive bills and neither does the disorganized and life-of-the-party Sheepdog. Both of these breeds fall in to the lower end of the damage control scale.

Here is where the real destruction comes. Pet owners become less affectionate when those big bills arrive either from destroying their own property or a neighbors. One in five admit to having regretted getting a pet and one in ten consider giving them away. This is how pets become homeless and eventually euthanized in a shelter or, worse, just left to roam on a street.

When deciding on a pet it's important to realize they come with all kinds of costs just like children. When you have a baby you never think some day they may want tennis shoes that cost $150. When you get a pet you never think as a puppy they may eat those $150 tennis shoes you just bought for your kid!

A little over a year ago, I updated the never-ending search for the perfect laptop, settling on the Google Chromebook Pixel, awed by its almost perfect cloning of the MacBook look and feel and willing to settle for the limitations of a Web-based operating system.

A couple of other laptops got kicked to the curb because of various shortcomings, but I noted that the MacBook Pro had not been tested for the simple reason that everyone who has one seems to love it, so who am I to doubt the wisdom of the crowd?

But time passes and experience sometimes trumps initial impressions. After 6 months or so with the Chromebook, I grew impatient with the limitations of the cloud-driven operating system and the resulting lack of an adequate image manipulation program and the inability to run multiple browsers, among other things.

The work I do is very similar to what millions of other content slaves and knowledge workers (pick your term) do each day. It requires sifting through many information sources more or less simultaneously, preferably in different browsers, while quickly collecting and editing graphics and photos and assembling all the parts into stories.  It's hard to do all of this on a Chromebook and, in fairness, it's not really made for that.

The Chromebook is perfect, if you ask me, for students, casual web browsers and business users whose usage consists mostly of email and simple documents. Some would argue that any high-end machine running Windows 8 would be the answer but my experience with Windows 8 leads me to avoid it whenever possible. Tablets are also quite adequate for those whose Web usage involves mostly social and entertainment applications.

But for the millions of people who rely on laptops for daily use in business and professional environments, laptops remain an essential tool.

Give it a try

So, a few months ago, I decided to give the MacBook a try, not having used a Mac on a daily basis for several years. I went to the Apple online outlet and, being a cheapskate, ordered a reconditioned MacBook Pro Retina for about $1,200 (roughly the same price as a comparably equipped Chromebook Pixel).

A day or so later, I got an email saying the item I had ordered was not in stock. But instead of canceling my order, Apple informed me it was substituting a new MacBook (with a faster processor) for the agreed-upon price -- the first time in decades anyone has offered me a better deal than I had agreed to.

The thing showed up a day or two later. It initially booted up into some kind of disability-related program apparently intended for visually impaired users. I called tech support and got a human on the line within a few minutes, who apologized for the error, which he said had been popping up lately.

A few keystrokes got me booted into the normal interface and things went swimmingly from there, as expected. What wasn't expected was that the tech support guy called me the next day to follow up and make sure things were still working properly -- marking the second "first" associated with this purchase. When's the last time Microsoft called you to make sure everything was working properly?

Once the interface issue was squared away, I loaded Google Chrome, Mozilla Firefox and several open source programs, logged into my Google cloud accounts and was happily writing and editing away in no time. 

Apple products sometimes suffer from excessively high consumer expectations but except for a few issues, I'd have to say the MacBook has done what its fans say it does -- it disappears. After a few hours, the thing becomes transparent, simply helping you get your work done without constantly calling attention to itself, as Windows insists on doing. 

The keyboard is excellent, the trackpad intuitive, the Retina screen comparable to the Pixel, the polished metal case a thing of beauty and, thanks be to Steve Jobs, there is no fan noise. Battery life is excellent; I routinely get five hours or more of use with lots of windows open. Viruses are not a problem.

A few quibbles

Having said all that, there are a couple of oddities. The machine in question has 8 gigs of memory but still runs out of memory and has to be restarted every day or two. This might seem normal to Windows users but to a dedicated Linux user it seems odd. I don't remember every running out of memory doing normal workaday tasks in similarly-outfitted Linux boxes.  

More perplexing is what I would call slow I/O functions -- meaning it takes forever for the thing to digest a large image, something that happens instantaneously in my various Linux machines. Edit a large photo, for example, and you'd better be prepared to wait several seconds for it to be saved on the MacBook's solid-state drive. 

Apple machines have always felt a big sluggish to me, so this actually comes as no surprise and is not really an issue except to those with a perceived need for speed. 

I should throw in some specs. The MacBook is running a 3 gHz Intel Core i7 -- a very fast processor. My Linux Mintbox -- a miniature desktop the size of a wifi router -- has a 1.80 gHz Intel Core i5 and a physical hard drive instead of the much faster SSID drive found in the MacBook. And yet, the Mintbox saves images so quickly the action is indetectable. In fairness, the Mintbox has 16 GB of memory, the MacBook only 8, which could help explain the slow transfer speed under some circumstances.

More is more

Conclusion: The MacBook Pro delivers a nearly-perfect marraige of software and hardware, enabling it to do just about everything most consumers want without undue commotion.

I continue to use Google Docs, Gmail and other Google cloud programs but the ability to store files locally and the flexibility of being able to install and run programs on the local drive tips the scale away from the Chromebook and towards the MacBook.

Students and casual users could probably buy one of the less expensive Chromebooks for $300 and be quite content, not to mention $1,000 richer. There are also Windows machines that sell for around $600 that are suitable for those willing to put up with a little extra aggravation. 

Those who need an ultra-fast, ultra-small desktop might want to look at the Linux-driven Mintbox. It takes up very little space yet does everything the typical desktop does, except it's faster, more secure and more reliable thanks to its Linux operating system. The Mintbox goes for about $600. A memory upgrade to 8 or 16 GB will make it blazing fast. Oh, and like the MacBook, the Mintbox has no fan (its case is a heat sink) so it is amazingly quiet and energy-efficient.  

---

All of the products mentioned and linked to in this review were purchased at retail, with no promotional considerations requested or received. 

When hackers break into corporate databases to steal customer information, their usual motivation is to use the stolen data to commit acts of identity theft with the customers' compromised identities.

But the European hackers who have allegedly broken into Domino's Pizza databases in Europe have a different motivation: holding the stolen information for “ransom.” Unless Domino's pays them 30,000 Euros (about $40,000), the hackers say they'll release all of the customer information they stole, everything from names and addresses to password and favorite toppings.

The alleged hacker group, called Rex Mundi, annouunced its alleged theft in a post to dpaste.de:

Dear friends and foes,

Earlier this week, we hacked our way into the servers of Domino's Pizza France and Belgium, who happen to share the same vulnerable database. And boy, did we find some juicy stuff in there! We downloaded over 592,000 customer records (including passwords) from French customers and over 58,000 records from Belgian ones. That's over six hundred thousand records, which include the customers' full names, addresses, phone numbers, email addresses, passwords and delivery instructions. (Oh, and their favorite pizza topping as well, because why not).

We immediately sent various emails to both Domino's Pizza France and Belgium. We also used the contact forms on their websites to let them know of this vulnerability and to offer them not to release this data in exchange for 30,000 Euros.

So far, Domino's Pizza has not replied to our demands. We would also like to point out that both of their websites are still up and vulnerable.

Domino's Pizza has until Monday at 8PM CET to pay us. If they do not do so, we will post the entirety of the data in our possession on the Internet.

The letter went on to list some “sample data” from the French and Belgian Domino's websites, including the names, addresses, contact information and passwords of three people from each.

Rex Mundi also posted on Twitter: "Reminder to all @dominos_pizzafr customers: if the company doesn't start paying us, we will release your data tonight."

But a Dutch newspaper quoted Domino's executive Andre ten Wolde as saying that the ransom demand would not be paid. Ten Wolde also stressed that no credit card data had been compromised.

Eric Schneiderman (Photo via YouTube) ChexSystems has long been a partner of the financial services industry, collecting information about consumers' financial habits and supplying it to banks.

Banks have relied on the information to identify people accused of fraudulent activity at one institution, so they can be prevented from carrying it out at another. But consumers have complained that the database uses go far beyond that.

“I went to a local bank to open up a savings account (I want to give the bank money and not get any interest, which is a totally different topic) and I was told I was not qualified for unknown reasons,” John, a reader from New York, posted at ConsumerAffairs. “I then went to my own personal bank where I have been banking over 10 years and told I was declined due to Chexsystems.”

Faulty facts

John and some other consumers posting similar reports insist the ChexSystems information about them was incorrect. Others had said they had bounced checks in the past but had always paid the money back, along with overdraft fees.

It got the attention of New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman, who has reached agreement with a major bank – Capital One – to change the way it uses ChexSystems.

Schneiderman says the result will be that more consumers will be able to open Capital One bank accounts.

“No one - least of all struggling New Yorkers - should be forced to rely on high-cost alternatives to banks just because they bounced a check or were a victim of identity theft,” Schneiderman said. “Equal access is the least we can do to ensure that all New Yorkers have access to widely used services such as our nation's banking system. I commend Capital One for stepping up and working with us to help eliminate an unnecessary barrier to opening a checking or savings account. I would hope other banks will step up and join us to do the same.”

Banking gate keeper

ChexSystems is a database that many large banks use to make judgments about consumers who apply to open accounts. Schneiderman says consumers who get a red flag from ChexSystems are generally lumped into those who present a credit or fraud risk and their account applications are rejected.

As a result they may be forced to join the growing ranks of the “unbanked” – consumers who don't have a bank account and often rely on prepaid money cards and other financial devices that are sometimes more expensive and less convenient.

Under the agreement, Capital One will continue to screen applicants using ChexSystems but will only check for past problems. It will not try to predict whether the applying customers are a current risk.

The bank will also increase its support for a New York City agency that offers financial education and counseling to low-income residents of New York. Specifically, Capital One will provide funds for the agency to help rejected applicants improve their financial education.

New business model

Not long ago banks competed hard for new customers, promoting all of their financial services. Older folks might remember when banks offered toasters and dinnerware to new customers.

But changes in the banking industry since 2008 have meant a growing number of consumers can't get a bank account because, frankly, banks want only the most profitable customers now. Schneiderman cites statistics showing the New York State average for unbanked households is 9.8%, higher than the national average of 7.7%.

Of counties in New York with more than 100,000 households, the study ranks the Bronx as the second most unbanked county in the country and Brooklyn as eighth.

Everyone with even the most rudimentary knowledge of food safety knows: raw meat needs to be handled and cooked carefully, in case of possible bacterial contamination, and raw chicken requires careful handling even by raw-meat-handling standards.

You also know to guard against the possibility of cross-contamination: don't slice raw vegetables on the same cutting board you use to slice raw chicken, wash your hands and utensils carefully after they come in contact with raw chicken, and so forth.

Cross-contamination from raw chicken is a bigger threat than many people might realize, with the potential to contaminate areas of your kitchen that never even made direct contact with any poultry. Luckily, that particular threat is fairly easy to avoid: if you're cooking with raw chicken, don't wash it first.

On June 16, the United Kingdom's Food Standard Agency put out a news update urging people who wash raw chicken before cooking to stop doing so:

We have issued a call for people to stop washing raw chicken to reduce the risk of contracting campylobacter, a potentially dangerous form of food poisoning. The call comes as new figures show that 44% of people always wash chicken before cooking it – a practice that can spread campylobacter bacteria onto hands, work surfaces, clothing and cooking equipment through the splashing of water droplets.

Campylobacter is the most common form of food poisoning in the UK, affecting an estimated 280,000 people a year.

But is it also a problem in America? The Centers for Disease Control say yes:

Campylobacter is one of the most common causes of diarrheal illness in the United States. Most cases occur as isolated, sporadic events, not as part of recognized outbreaks. … about 14 cases are diagnosed each year for each 100,000 persons in the population. Many more cases go undiagnosed or unreported, and campylobacteriosis is estimated to affect over 1.3 million persons every year. Campylobacteriosis occurs much more frequently in the summer …. Although Campylobacter infection does not commonly cause death, it has been estimated that approximately 76 persons with Campylobacter infections die each year.

Campylobacter can also lead to reactive arthritis and a serious nervous-system disorder called Guillain-Barré syndrome. Britain's FSA warning against washing raw chicken included the cautionary anecdote of Ann Edwards, a 67-year-old Englishwoman who caught camplylobacter in 1997 and eventually developed Guillain-Barré syndrome, leaving her partially paralyzed from the chest down.

Not the first

The FSA's anti-wash warning is not the first, however. Last August, NPR's food blog ran a story saying “Julia Child was wrong: don't wash your raw chicken” and spoke to Drexel University food researcher Jennifer Quinlan, who said “There's no reason, from a scientific point of view, to think you're making it any safer ... in fact, you're making it less safe.”

Studies have shown that when you rinse raw meat, bacteria can fly up to three feet away, due to the spattering of water droplets too small to even see.

So there's one bit of good news for harried cooks here: if you're preparing chicken and the recipe calls for you to wash the raw bird before you start preparing it, skipping that step is not a lazy shortcut, but the healthy and responsible thing to do.

There's an old news business phrase that's used to denigrate articles that are little more than collections of excerpts from previous stories. They're called "gluepot" stories -- meaning they are basically a cut-and-paste product.

Although they didn't use that term that's what a group of scientists at Cornell University and elsewhere found when they studied more than 290 million "tweets" emitted during the 2012 presidential nominating conventions and debates.

Instead of original observations and illuminating insights based on personal experience, they found little creative thinking, and a slavish blitz of retweeting "elites" like @billmaher and @seanhannity.

Eyes on the stars

"Frankly, we're rather disappointed," said Cornell University's Drew Margolin. "Social media has so much potential to improve the diversity of voices and quality of exchanges in political discussion by giving individuals the technological capability to compete with the mass media in disseminating information, setting agendas and framing conversation."

Instead, says the Cornell assistant professor of communication, "during live media events when the largest number of people are paying attention, people move away from this deliberative potential by replacing existing interpersonal social dynamics with increased collective attention to existing 'stars.'"

Those stars would be Twitter users like the liberal comedian Bill Maher, the most retweeted in three of the four candidate debates, and Sean Hannity, the conservative media personality who popularly opined, "Middle class crushed last 4 years" during the third debate.

Most study subjects were so mesmerized by erudite elites they forgot to think for themselves, the researchers lamented. The social media tide of public discourse did not rise far in the 2012 campaign, the social scientists agreed, but a few stars' fortunes did.

In defense of the retweeting masses, the authors wrote: "The uncertainty of live events may predispose users to seek information from authorities and their expert sensemaking processes rather than from their peers."

Not that there's anything wrong with that … or is there?

"Combined with our findings about concentrated attention to elite voices and diminished use of interpersonal communication," the researchers wrote, "these factors could combine to create ideal conditions for rumor persistence, belief polarization and the dissemination of misinformation that can – intentionally or unintentionally – undermine deliberation."

The complete report is published in PLoS ONE, an online academic journal. 

As summer approaches, builder confidence in the market for newly built, single-family homes is on the rise.

The National Association of Home Builders (NAHB)/Wells Fargo Housing Market Index (HMI) jumped 4 points in June to a level of 49 -- just 1 point shy of the threshold for what is considered good building conditions.

“After several months of little fluctuation, a 4-point uptick in builder sentiment is a welcome sign and shows some renewed confidence in the industry,” said NAHB Chairman Kevin Kelly, a home builder and developer from Wilmington, Del. “However, builders are facing strong headwinds, including the limited availability of labor.”

NAHB Chief Economist David Crowe points out, though, that consumers are still hesitant, and are waiting for clear signals of full-fledged economic recovery before making a home purchase. “Builders,” he said, “are reacting accordingly, and are moving cautiously in adding inventory.”

The survey

The HMI, which is derived from a monthly survey that NAHB has been conducting for 30 years, gauges builder perceptions of current single-family home sales and sales expectations for the next six months as “good,” “fair” or “poor.”

The survey asks builders to rate traffic of prospective buyers as “high to very high,” “average” or “low to very low.” Scores for each component are then used to calculate a seasonally adjusted index where any number over 50 indicates that more builders view conditions as good than poor.

Across the board gains

All three index components posted gains in June. Most notably, the component gauging current sales conditions increased 6 points to 54. The component gauging sales expectations in the next 6 months rose 3 points to 59 and the component measuring buyer traffic increased by 3 to 36.

Looking at the three-month moving averages for regional HMI scores, the South and Northeast each edged up 1 point to 49 and 34, respectively, while the West held steady at 47. The Midwest fell a single point to 46.

Smith's Country Cheese of Winchendon, Mass., is recalling 21 wheels of Waxed Gouda.

The cheese has the potential to be contaminated with Listeria monocytogenes.

No illnesses have been reported to date.

The product was distributed in Massachusetts by wholesale distributors and further sold to retail stores.

The wheels are coated in red wax and wrapped in Saran Wrap with various weights of whole wheels at 10 lbs and half wheels at 5 lbs. The wheels may have been cut and packaged at retail level for consumer size units. Labels on the front read “Smith's Farmstead Gouda” for whole wheels and “Mountain Gouda” for half wheels. The back of the wheel has a weight label with the Julian date “4037” in the lower right hand corner.

Consumers who have purchased recalled product are urged not to consume it, but to return it to Smith's Country Cheese at 20 Otter River Road, Winchendon, Mass., for a full refund.

Consumers with questions may contact Smith's Country Cheese at 1-800-700-9974 Monday through Friday between 9:00 am to 5:00 pm EST.

It has been the scourge of teenagers for generations. But acne, the red pimples on the face and neck, can afflict adults as well, especially pregnant women.

While the affliction is as old as man, there are some new developments when it comes to treatment.

“While over-the-counter (OTC) products are pretty much the same as they have been for years – just different concentrations of benzoyl peroxide and salicylic acid in various forms such as cleansers, gels and creams – the prescription world has really changed in the past 10 years or so,” said Sarah Taylor, M.D., a dermatologist at Wake Forest Baptist Medical Center. “We’re much better equipped to deal with all different types of acne.”

According to the Mayo Clinic, prescription topical acne medications include Avita, Retin-A, Differin, Taxorac amd Avage. All are products derived from Vitamin A. They are designed to promote cell turnover and prevent hair follicles from getting clogged up.

Side effects

There may be side effects, however. Some topical treatments may cause stinging, burning, redness or peeling. Your doctor may recommend ways to reduce these side effects.

Generally, a doctor may not prescribe an acne medication unless you have a severe case. In that case, you're stuck with OTC remedies which, as Taylor notes, haven't changed much over the years.

“Over-the-counter products can work in many cases,” said William Huang, M.D., another Wake Forest Baptist dermatologist. “But no matter what the TV ads may say, they take time, usually six to eight weeks. You’re not going to have that overnight, here today-gone tomorrow phenomenon.”

Teen angst

For a teenager with a big date or other social event coming up quickly, that can be frustrating.

“Acne can cause them a lot of stress and affect their emotional well-being so they want something that works right away, but we don’t have anything like that,” Huang said.

When selecting an OTC acne medication, be sure to check the ingredients. Dermatologists at the American Academy of Dermatology say products with acetone should also contain alcohol. Acetone alone, they say, is mostly ineffective.

Most common acne products contain benzoyl peroxide. It's among the oldest of active ingredients in acne medication and dermatologists say it is often effective, but that dry skin can be a side effect.

Another old ingredient, sulfur, is also effective though no one knows why. Be warned – its oder can be unpleasant.

You may see herbal, organic and natural OTC acne products. Dermatologists say there have been few clinical trials and their effectiveness is mostly unknown.

What's responsible for it?

Acne breaks out when the skin’s pores get clogged up. Pores of the skin each open to a hair follicle containing a gland that produces oil called sebum, which helps keep skin soft.

When the glands start producing too much oil the pores can become blocked. When that happens, dirt, bacteria and dead skin cells start to build up, forming the whiteheads, blackheads, pimples and other lesions commonly referred to as zits.

Why this happens isn't exactly known. Hormonal changes could have something to do with it, since these changes are associated with the excess production of oil. Heredity may also be a factor.

Researchers over the years have debunked a number of myths about acne. Pimples, they say, are not caused by dirty skin or by eating chocolate, pizza or greasy foods.

The Affordable Care Act (ACA), also known as ObamaCare, brought many changes to the health care market last year. Even bigger changes may be ahead.

HealthCare.com, not to be confused with the government health insurance site HealthCare.gov, is a private technology company that assists consumers in the health insurance marketplace. It predicts that the upcoming “open enrollment” period, when consumers can buy insurance in the ACA marketplace, will be even more active than the first one, which ended in March.

"We expect between 12-16 million people will purchase plans during the next Open Enrollment period which starts on November 15, 2014 and ends on February 15, 2015," said Jeff Smedsrud, CEO of HealthCare.com. "This surge in activity will demand that both private companies and federal and state marketplaces become more efficient in serving new buyers of ObamaCare."

The types of policies consumers purchase may also be changing. The lowest-priced coverage under ObamaCare typically carries a very high deductible, meaning the consumers must pay the first $5,000 or more of initial expenses before benefits kick in.

That often comes as a surprise to some consumers who assume that ACA policies cover all expenses. That may open the door for an expansion of what are known as consumer-directed health plans (CDHP).

15% growth

According to the American Association of Preferred Provider Organizations (AAPPO), CDHPs grew by 15% last year.

A CDHP allows a consumer to use a tax-deferred health savings account or health reimbursement account to pay for routine, inexpensive medical care. The inexpensive but high deductible comprehensive health insurance policy is there to cover major health expenses.

As health insurance premiums have skyrocketed, many businesses have moved to CDHPs, funding the health savings accounts but saving money by switching to high deductible health care policies.

These plans grew from 39 million in 2012 to 45 million in 2013, according to an AAPPO analysis of the Mercer National Survey of Employer Sponsored Health Plans.

"As major changes to the health system loomed last year, employers continued to look to consumer-directed health plans to offer the affordability, flexibility and stability to ensure their workforces get the care they need," said Karen Greenrose, AAPPO President and CEO.

Mixed reception

Historically CDHPs have been popular with some consumers but not so much with others. If you had health coverage with a little or no deductible, there wasn't much of an advantage. But those types of policies are either disappearing or getting a lot more expensive.

The AAPPO survey found that 23% of all employers offered CDHPs last year, a 1% gain from 2012. The larger the employer the more likely it was to offer a CDHP. Of companies employing 500 or more people, 39% offered CDHPs in 2013 – up from 36% the year before.

Thirty-five percent of all employers say they expect to offer CDHPs in 2016, with 64% of large employers expecting to offer them.

From a health policy standpoint, the growth of CDHPs can either be seen as a positive or negative. Those favoring these plans argue they will reduce the number of uninsured while encouraging consumers to shop carefully for routine health services.

Critics, on the other hand, say CDHPs mostly shift health care costs to employees. The also say these plans are favored by healthy consumers, since they have less need of services. Someone with a chronic illness, for example, might quickly exhaust the money in the health savings account.

A massive mobile cramming scheme that cost consumers millions of dollars is also going to cost its founders and operators millions of dollars in cash, cars, houses, jewelry and other assets.

The Federal Trade Commission alleged that Lin Miao a number of accomplices pitched text message services offering “love tips,” “fun facts,” and celebrity gossip alerts, but placed charges for these services – typically $9.99 a month – on consumers’ bills without their permission -- a practice known as mobile cramming.

They also allegedly used deceptive websites designed to collect consumers’ mobile phone numbers that would then be billed for the services.

The charges appeared on consumers’ phone bills under confusing names such as “77050IQ12CALL8663611606” and “25184USBFIQMIG” and in many instances, consumers did not notice the variations in the amount of their bills from month to month. When consumers did notice the charges and attempted to seek refunds, the process was often highly cumbersome, with some promised refunds from the defendants never arriving, or consumers receiving only partial refunds from their phone company.

Assets forfeited 

To settle the charges, Miao and associates have agreed to surrender more than $10 million in assets, including the contents of numerous bank accounts; real estate in Los Angeles, Beverly Hills and Chicago; and a number of cars and pieces of jewelry.

“Cramming unauthorized charges on consumers’ phone bills is unlawful, and this settlement shows the FTC is committed to making sure that anyone who does it won’t be able to keep their ill-gotten gains,” said Jessica Rich, Director of the FTC’s Bureau of Consumer Protection. “Consumers have the right to know what they are being charged.”

Under the terms of the settlement, Lin Miao and the corporate defendants will be permanently banned from placing any charges on consumers’ phone bills, making any misrepresentations to consumers about a product or service or a consumers’ obligation to pay, and will also be prohibited from charging consumers for a product or service without their express consent.

The settlement includes a monetary judgment of more than $150 million, which is partially suspended based on Miao’s inability to pay the full amount after he turns over nearly all of his and the companies’ assets.

If you've been feeling annoyed with various friends, colleagues or peripheral acquaintances who keep e-pestering you with email urging you to connect with them on LinkedIn, register with LinkedIn, or just do something LinkedIn, keep this possibility in mind: those people might have no idea any this is happening.

Courthouse News Service reported on June 13 that a federal district judge in California issued a ruling this week regarding an ongoing class action case that started last September, when several LinkedIn users filed suit alleging that LinkedIn engaged in “email harvesting” — basically going through the addresses in users' email contact lists and sending those addresses unsolicited spam in the users' name.

As an example of LinkedIn's harvesting activities, the original court brief said this:

LinkedIn attempts to access a user's Gmail account if the user has Gmail open in another browser window or has not logged out of Gmail. If an email account is open, LinkedIn accesses the account by using the open email session. LinkedIn does not prompt members for a password. Instead, LinkedIn sweeps the external email account for every email address a user has been emailed by, CCed, or emailed. For many users this is thousands of addresses.

LinkedIn did not deny such activities; its counter-argument instead rested on the assertions that these activities are permissible according to LinkedIn's stated user terms, and furthermore, its email harvesting did not “injure or enrich” anyone — in other words, nobody got hurt from it and nobody made any money from it, either.

In January, everyone went back to court so the plaintiffs could rebut LinkedIn's counter-argument by pointing out that LinkedIn charges members $10 to send messages to other members to whom they're not connected — suggesting the company itself values those promotional emails at $10 apiece.

A mixed ruling

Finally, this week, U.S. District judge Lucy Koh issued a ruling that favors LinkedIn regarding some matters, and the plaintiffs in others.

The initial email harvesting is acceptable, Koh ruled, because when you register with LinkedIn and click through the various permission screens, those do include granting LinkedIn permission to look through your email addresses and send everyone an invitation to connect with you.

However, Judge Koh also ruled that the permission screens only covered the initial email invitations, not the repeated followup invitations. In her 39-page ruling, she wrote this:

“Although the court concludes that plaintiffs have consented to LinkedIn's initial endorsement email, the court finds that plaintiffs have plausibly alleged that they did not consent to the second and third reminder endorsement emails …. Specifically, the second and third endorsement emails could injure users' reputations by allowing contacts to think that the users are the types of people who spam their contacts or are unable to take the hint that their contacts do not want to join their LinkedIn network.”

If you've eaten at a P. F. Chang's restaurant and paid with credit or debit card, be warned: hackers have breached the database of at least some restaurants in the chain, and your confidential financial data might be at risk.

On June 12, P.F. Chang's posted a “Security compromise update” on its security page, starting with a statement by CEO Rick Frederico:

On Tuesday, June 10, P.F. Chang's learned of a security compromise that involves credit and debit card data reportedly stolen from some of our restaurants. Immediately, we initiated an investigation with the United States Secret Service and a team of third-party forensics experts to understand the nature and scope of the incident, and while the investigation is still ongoing, we have concluded that data has been compromised.

The statement goes on to say that Chang's has installed a manual credit card imprinting system in all restaurants in the continental U.S., so customers who still want to pay with credit or debit cards rather than cash can do so, if they wish.

Who told whom?

That bit about Chang's learning of the security compromise and initiating an investigation with the Secret Service might give the impression that Chang's discovered the breach and then contacted the Secret Service people. Actually it was the opposite, as explained in the nine question-and-answer combos listed after Frederico's statement:

2. WHEN DID P.F. Chang's DISCOVER THIS INCIDENT?

The United States Secret Services alerted P.F. Chang's to this incident on June 10, 2014.

.…

4. WHAT INFORMATION WAS EXPOSED?

According to the United States Secret Service, credit card and debit card numbers that have been used at P.F. Chang's are involved.

Sometimes, when security breaches like this are discovered, they're limited to a specific time frame — it started on this date and ended on that date, so the damage is limited to customers who patronized the business within that range. Unfortunately, no such time limits have been determined for the Chang's breach yet:

8. HOW DO I KNOW IF MY CARD WAS INVOLVED OR SHOULD BE CANCELLED?

Because we are still in the preliminary stages of our investigation, we do not yet know which credit or debit cards may be involved. P.F. Chang's has notified the credit card companies and is working with them to identify the affected cards. We encourage you to monitor your accounts and to report any suspected fraudulent activity to your card company.

How far back into the past does this go—should you worry if you ate at a Chang's last month? Last year? A couple years back? That's not known at this point.

Priceline is buying OpenTable, the restaurant reservation service. It extends Priceline Group Inc.'s tentacles into a new travel-related field, following the recent acquisition of Paris-based reservation service Lafourchette by TripAdvisor. 

Priceline owns a portfolio of travel-related sites, including Booking.com and Kayak.com.

"OpenTable is a great match for The Priceline Group.  They provide us with a natural extension into restaurant marketing services and a wonderful and highly-valued booking experience for our global customers," said Darren Huston, President & CEO of The Priceline Group. 

With more than 15 million diners seated per month across more than 31,000 restaurants, OpenTable, introduced in 2008, claims to be the world's leading provider of online restaurant reservations.  

Priceline Group claims the title of the world's leading accommodation booking platform.  Every night, an average of more than 1 million guests stay in accommodations booked through one of the Priceline Group brands.

"The Priceline Group is a leader in e-commerce innovation with global expertise in online marketing and digital customer conversion across devices, and they have an exceptional track record of customer service in dozens of languages around the world," said Matt Roberts, CEO of OpenTable. 

OpenTable will continue to be headquartered in San Francisco, CA and will operate as an independent business led by its current management team within The Priceline Group.

The cost of financing a home was up during the week ending June 12 -- the second straight increase.

Freddie Mac reports the rate for the 30-year fixed rate mortgage (FRM) averaged 4.20%, with an average 0.6 point, up 6 basis points from the previous week’s 4.14%. A year ago at this time, the 30-year FRM averaged 3.98%.

The rate for the 15-year FRM rose to 3.31% from 3,23%, with an average 0.5 point. It averaged 3.10% at this time last year.

The 5-year Treasury-indexed hybrid adjustable-rate mortgage (ARM) averaged 3.05%, with an average 0.4 point, up 8 basis points from a week ago.The same week in 2013, the 5-year ARM averaged 2.79%.

The rate for the 1-year Treasury-indexed ARM averaged 2.40% this week with an average 0.4 point, unchanged from last week. At this time last year, the 1-year ARM averaged 2.58%.

Freddie Mac Vice President and Chief Economist Frank Nothaft says the increase was due to recent economic news, including the increase in 10-year Treasury yields. He also points out that the economy added 217,000 jobs in May, following a 282,000 surge in April and a 203,000 increase in March. Meanwhile, the unemployment rate in May held steady at 6.3 percent."

Bankrate

Mortgage rates as charted by Bankrate, also posted gains this week.

According to Bankrate.com's weekly national survey, the benchmark 30-year FRM moved up to 4.34%, with an average of 0.34 discount and origination points.

The average 15-year FRM inched up to 3.43%, while the larger jumbo 30-year FRM rose to 4.41 percent. ARMs were also higher this week, with the 5-year ARM rising to 3.37%, the 7-year ARM jumping to 3.58%.    

The benefits of waiting

As 2013 came to a close, the average 30-year FRM was 4.69%. At that time, a $200,000 loan would have carried a monthly payment of $1,036.07.

After drifting lower for much of the first five months of 2014, the average rate is now 4.32%, and the monthly payment for the same size loan would be $994.45 -- a savings of nearly $42 per month for anyone that waited.